City Hall Week in Review: Portland Public Schools bond measure and the 2012 mayoral race

A weekly analysis on City Hall and local politics for the week of Dec. 13-19. Got a story tip? rfrank@oregonian.com or 503-221-8519. For real-time headlines on City Hall or local politics, follow us @cityhallwatch.

Portland Public Schools bond measure and the 2012 mayoral candidates: The committee that’s leading the campaign to pass the $548 million school bond reads like a potential 2012 mayoral ballot. Sam Adams, Jeff Cogen, Nick Fish, Jim Francesconi, Charlie Hales, Mary Nolan and Dan Saltzman. Cogen will co-chair the campaign along with Julia Brim-Edwards, a Nike exec and former school board member. Nike has already contributed $10,000 to the campaign. There’s been some questions about what role Adams will play in the campaign, given his political issues among school parents. But Liz Kaufman, the campaign’s strategist, says they picked chairs who have the most time to devote to the campaign on a weekly basis. Adams' schedule doesn't allow that kind of time. The rest of the campaign committee includes: developer Mark Edlen, former PDC executive director Pat LaCrosse and PGE CEO Jim Piro.Adams, even when sick, generates attention: Adams missed a few key meetings this week, including the school bond campaign kick-off Tuesday at Gerding Edlen Development’s offices. The mayor’s staff said he had a head cold and missed his appointments on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. The Portland Tribune also referenced his illness in a piece this week. When Adams is absent, the chatter starts around City Hall given the mayor’s history of missing some key meetings and speeches in the last few years. This week, Adams missed a press event on human trafficking with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden and U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer on Sunday and a council work session to review the city’s federal lobbying agenda on Tuesday. He ran a marathon of public meetings Wednesday, then was out Thursday. But he kept up Thursday on his Twitter acccount.

Lovefest for City Hall ‘frenemies’: Matt Davis, formerly a reporter at the Portland Mercury, first referred to Commissioners Nick Fish and Randy Leonard as ‘frenemies’ in characterizing their response post-Breedlove. It’s an apt description of a lot of relationships around City Hall. Like a family, they occasionally act like enemies. They bicker, complain and poke each other in the eye. Other times, they love each other like friends. That’s what happened this week when Fish got his deserved props from his four peers for inching one step closer to building affordable housing for veterans in South Waterfront. If there’s a swing vote on the council, it’s Fish. While Saltzman and Amanda Fritz seem to enjoy asking pointed questions that make Leonard’s face turn red, Fish has generally been reluctant to publicly challenge Leonard or Adams. That’s allowed Fish to generally retain the most stable relationships with the other four council members. It also helps Fish collect the votes he needs for key projects like the South Waterfront affordable housing.

City Hall Notes: Can Neil Goldschmidt's name grace the City Council chambers? This week during a council meeting, Adams praised Bill Scott – an executive at Flexcar – for his work on the mayor’s agenda agenda. Adams mentioned Scott had been chief of staff to a previous mayor. What he didn’t mention? That mayor was Goldschmidt. / Developers continue to chase the apartment market in Portland. As the Northwest Examiner reported in its December issue, one of Oregon’s biggest suburban home builders is trying to break into the urban apartment market. Dennis Sackhoff, president of Arbor Custom Homes, plans to tear down a 110-year-old house at 2124 N.W. Flanders St. to build a 28-unit apartment project. / Five years after sales began, the developers of the 31-story John Ross condo tower in South Waterfront sold their final unit. The sale out ended a difficult ride for the Gerding Edlen and Williams & Dame Development. The condo building, the biggest in the city, is dotted with mortgage defaults and the developers lost primary control to their lenders. But their sales work is finally over.